Fujitsu Siemens unveils PRIMEQUEST

Up to 32 CPUs housed

Some companies have a knack for generating headlines, whilst others go about their business with an astonishing lack of noise but with an abundance of quality. Over the years, Fujitsu Siemens has quietly managed to build itself a reputation for constructing excellent Enterprise servers, particularly with the PRIMEPOWER Sparc64 systems and, to a slightly lesser degree, its PRIMERGY X-Architecture machines.

However, whilst building robust enterprise class servers is all well and good, there are times when shouting about what you have can undoubtedly deliver benefit. The launch this month of a new server line, PRIMEQUEST, gives Fujitsu Siemens a well-deserved opportunity to step into the limelight.

The new PRIMEQUEST servers have been designed with the goal of hosting Linux and Windows environments that require data centre class availability, good performance and scalability coupled with great flexibility and optimal resource usage. The servers boast a Fujitsu developed chipset built around Itanium 2 (Madison) processors. The two servers currently on offer, the PRIMEQUEST 440 and 480, can respectively house up to 16 or 32 CPUs. It is expected that a 64 way machine will be made available next year and the company states that it has no plans to introduce anything smaller than a 16 way machine in the series.

The Fujitsu developed chipsets include the System Mirror and Flexible I/O (FIO) technologies. System Mirror allows memory modules and crossbar interconnects to isolate errors without halting the system, whilst FIO makes it possible to match I/O resources with processing requirements to ensure that performance requirements are met with no service interruption.

It is clear that Fujitsu Siemens has brought significant elements of its carefully garnered Mainframe and Data Centre experience to the development of these servers. Automation, virtualisation and integration are cornerstone features within the platform. It must be kept in mind that PRIMEQUEST has been designed specifically to house Windows and Linux and to make these environments part of the company's Dynamic Data Center initiative.

Fujitsu Siemens expects that large-scale database systems and online transaction processing environments will form a major opportunity for the new line. The PRIMEQUEST architecture's ability to support up to 8 highly available, independent and hardware isolated partitions within a single system also makes the server attractive to organisations seeking to consolidate onto fewer systems.

The PRIMEQUEST line rounds out Fujitsu Siemens offerings and gives the company a strong range of servers that span low-end Windows and Linux machines, highly available and robust Windows and Linux platforms and enterprise class Unix (Solaris) offerings. Fujitsu Siemens has been too quiet for too long. It is now time for the company to market its offerings far more aggressively than it has in the past. The Hosting of Enterprise class Linux and Windows is a good excuse to start shouting. The other server vendors are sure to have taken note of the continuing strengthening of these platforms.